Winter Olympics 2018: The United States flag-bearer not dipping the flag, explained

During the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics on Friday you’ll see nations dip their flags to Korean heads of state and dignitaries while marching in Pyeongchang. It’s a long-standing Olympic tradition (and part of policy), but one nation will not dip its flag — the United States.

Beginning in 1908 during the Parade of Nations at the London Olympics, dipping the flag was something every country agreed to take part in — including the U.S. However, it took one man wanting to prove a point to change all that. Ralph Rose, an Irish-American shot putter, backed by a cohort of fellow Irish-American Olympic teammates refused to dip Old Glory to the British. The move, which was taken as a great offense, is rumored to have been a contributing factor in the U.S. Olympic team being harshly-judged by British officials at the games.

Mark Dyreson, professor of history and kinesiology at Penn State University told WGBH in 2016 how the moment came about:

“They were incensed, and had been for years, that Ireland was incorporated into Great Britain’s Olympic team and that Irish athletes had to march behind the Union Jack.”

Rose’s teammate and three-time gold medal winner Martin Sheridan is rumored to have said, “This flag dips to no earthly king,” in response to his teammate not honoring Britain’s monarchy. A proud Irish-American athlete himself, Sheridan was one of the most successful early-American Olympians of all time, and held similar beliefs about the need to make a statement.

The history of dipping the flag was on-and-off between the 1908 games and 1936, which was based on the flag bearer. It wasn’t until the 1936 Olympics in Berlin that dipping the flag became a controversy again. The United States Olympic Committee (USOC), deep in the midst of a possible boycott, made a firm commitment that the flag would not be dipped to Adolf Hitler in Germany, and asked German-born gymnast Al Joachim to carry the flag for the U.S. The defiant move led to a native German refusing to lower the American flag to the leader of Germany.

The U.S., along with Bulgaria, Iceland, and India were the only counties who refused to dip their flag to Hitler. This was when the tradition of keeping the flag straight was codified by the USOC, and never again has the flag been dipped during an opening ceremony.

Balking the tradition was taken one step further in the 1940s when the U.S. Flag Code was changed to bar the flag ever being dipped. In the preamble to the section titled “Respect for the Flag,” the code says:

“No disrespect should be shown to the flag of the United States of America; the flag should not be dipped to any person or thing. Regimental colors, State flags, and organization or institutional flags are to be dipped as a mark of honor.”

However, despite it being part of law the USOC isn’t always great about conveying this to athletes charged with bearing the flag, who are sometimes confused about how they should act when other nations dip their flags to the host country. In 2010, Mark Grimmette carried the flag in Vancouver, and wasn’t told about not dipping the flag until moments before the U.S. Olympic team walked.

“I had a lot of people tell me,” he recalls, “you’re not supposed to dip the flag.”

USA’s decision not to adhere to the International Olympic Committee’s policy of dipping the flag remains a point of contention, albeit one that has been turned to a simmer more recently. Occasionally there are questions about why the U.S. doesn’t dip the flag from countries that see it as a lack of respect, but at this point changing it would require a modification to the U.S. Flag Code, which is wholly unlikely — especially just to appease host nations at the Olympic Games.

So while the Flag Code now governs why you won’t see athletes dip the flag during the opening ceremony, remember that it all started because a handful of immigrants who won gold for the U.S. decided Great Britain didn’t deserve their respect.